Zoe Saldana Addresses Her Experience Working On ‘Nina’Posted by Wilson Morales
April 28, 2016
Source: The Root
With SO much happening in the music world last week with the unexpected death of Prince and the surprised release of Beyonce’s ‘Lemonade,’ many may have forgotten that the controversial Nina Simone film ‘Nina,’ was finally released in theaters and met with less fanfare.
Starring Zoe Saldana in the iconic role, her casting was greeting with mixed emotions from the estate of Ms. Simone and her loyal fans.
Days before the Prince and Beyonce news, Ms. Saldana appeared at a screening in Atlanta along with producer Stuart Parr and Al Schackman. Schackman was one of the original members of Nina Simone’s band. He consulted on the arrangements and performed on all of the songs sung by Zoe Saldana in the film. He was also a close friend to Nina and a historian on Nina Simone’s music legacy.
Following the screening, the trio came on stage for a Q & A that was moderated by HLN Morning Show Producer Denise Hendricks.
According to The Root’s Ronda Racha Penrice, who was in attendance that evening, “The conversation, led by television news executive Denise Hendricks, touched on the difficulties of making the movie, Saldana’s performance and Simone’s legacy. There was no discussion about the controversy and drama surrounding the film, even though it was alluded to many times. Parr emphasized that the film was a slice of Simone’s life, with Schackman making it clear that an exhaustive film about the artist would require at least a “10-part series or 10 films.”
What’s interesting is that while Saldana was there to help promote the film, she wasn’t about to sit there and be grilled by the audience. “No questions were taken from the audience, but Saldana did pose for several pictures after the screening. During the 30-minute conversation, she answered three key questions about how she became a part of the film, her preparation in playing Simone and what she hopes audiences get from the film.”
Here’s a transcript of what Saldana had to say on the film and her experience.
How she became a part of Nina.
Zoe Saldana: The first time I heard about the Nina Simone project, I was at a fashion show in Paris and Mary J. Blige was there as a performer, and as soon as she got onstage, she announced that she was going to be playing Nina in this biopic. And I remembered I cried because I was so happy, and I thought, “This is just going to be the best thing ever. I know that I’m going to go see it.” And a year later, I was approached by a filmmaker—you know Cynthia Mort—and she said she wanted to meet me for the Nina movie, and I was really surprised because I thought, well, Mary J.’s doing that, and she was like, “Yes, she was as of recently, but she will not be a part of it, and this was a mutual decision.”
I remember there was something about the whole idea of knowing a female artist that was going to be playing a very important role, and me talking about it with her a year before, and then all of a sudden, you know. As an artist, I am going to give you [the] step-by-step of how you approach something or you’re thinking of something, and you kind of go, “Well, I’m not going to touch that unless I get absolute clearing from Mary J. or her camp that this is true.”
Once that came about and I received confirmation, I turned the project down because for various reasons I thought I was not the right age to be a part of this project because of the time frame … which the director wanted to document or talk about in her story of Nina. And obviously—well, the other obvious reasons—but then something else came about once I kept brewing with this, and I thought, “Well, this project has been at every studio, pitched at every studio. It has been offered to a number of excellent, amazing actresses that, for whatever valid reasons of their own, decided to pass on the project. Do I sit on the side and wait and sort of, for my personal fears, do I just sit on the side and just pass this project from my hands to the next hands and just wash my hands of it and be done with it? Or do I make the decision to be a part of the telling of the story of an iconic figure in American history that happens to be a woman, that happens to be black?” So I guess the good outweighed the fear and the bad.
Her preparation on playing Nina
Zoe Saldana: I met Al pretty early in the process of me kind of discovering Nina for myself—he filled up my heart with so many beautiful anecdotes that made me feel like I was a fly in the room at times, and I would find myself just dazed after having those conversations with Al and feeling like she was just somebody that I would have loved to, just loved to know, to hear talk, while she was sober, while she was drunk, while she was playing, while she was moody. She just felt like the kind of role model that I would have wanted to have met.
The rest of the interview can be read here.
NINA, which is the biopic based on the incomparable singer, songwriter, pianist, civil rights activist Nina Simone, was released in theaters, VOD and Digital HD on April 22, 2016 through RLJ Entertainment. Written and directed by Cynthia Mort, the film also stars David Oyelowo (Clifton Henderson) and features Mike Epps as Richard Pryor.
